


Notes from a Merchant's Excursion

by monsterkiss



Category: Rune Factory (Video Games)
Genre: F/M, Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-21
Updated: 2019-12-21
Packaged: 2021-02-26 07:47:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,535
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21846175
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/monsterkiss/pseuds/monsterkiss
Summary: Yue has plied her wares in many corners of the nation of Norad, and there are two things she has learnt: There's always something to sell, and it's never boring.
Relationships: Cecilia/Kyle (Rune Factory), Dylas/Frey (Rune Factory), Kross/Raguna (Rune Factory)
Kudos: 5





	Notes from a Merchant's Excursion

**Author's Note:**

> This was written for tumblr user irontrashdraws for the Rune Factory Secret Santa this year!! There were a lot of great characters and ships I had to choose from so in the end I just. Kinda. Wrote most of them. Whoops? It was fun though. I'm kinda tempted to do a series like this, in an anthology style. It might be nice? But I'm getting way ahead of myself. I hope irontrashdraws enjoys this work and I hope the rest of you do too!

Yue always takes the time to pack her bag neatly, no matter how far she’s going or what she’s carrying. It’s satisfying for her to lay all her wares out, examining each for quality, tallying up her inventory, and then pack them into her bag so neatly that you couldn’t slip a blade of grass between the goods. It’s efficient, of course, and she has her pride as a merchant, but there’s something comforting about it. Wherever she goes, she carries this piece of herself with her.

There was something wonderful about starting out on another journey. Whenever she finally hoisted her pack onto her shoulders and stepped out of the door it felt like she was taking the first steps on an adventure, no matter the weather and no matter how many times she visited the same place. With her little part of home slung over her back, she can go anywhere.

* * *

“No, I can’t understand that. It sounds silly.”

The woman spoke blunt and curt, but Yue hadn’t found success in her career by not knowing how to read people, and she could see she hadn’t really intended offence. Besides, fellow travelling salespeople shared an understanding of sorts. So she nodded thoughtfully as she admired the wares of this modest but well-stocked blacksmiths, the warmth of the forge cradling her. She turned the idea over in her head.

“Well, maybe it’s just something I do to make the time pass smoothly between towns,” she conceded with a little smile, and she was gratified to see the woman nod with a slight flush, brushing back her long red hair.

“Oh you say that about everything, Raven.” The dwarf at the forge half-turned away from his work, grinning at her as he spoke. 

Raven sighed, shrugging. “Or perhaps I only say it about everything when you’re around, Gaius.”

Gaius chuckled, the red-hot tongs held perhaps a little too casually in his hands. “That could be it, I suppose.” The light of the forge made his face glow.

Yue smiled. She’d always preferred her own company in her work; she could do all the tasks involved in it very well, so there really was no need of anyone else. Still, coming here always made her wonder if it might be nice to have a partner. Raven and Gaius balanced each other so well, despite Raven’s prickliness and Gaius’s overly easy-going nature, the two really did get on and the results spoke for themselves in their work and their products.

But then, Yue had always been pretty balanced on her own.

Still. “We really should travel together sometime, when we’re headed in the same direction. It might be fun. Not to mention safer,” she added, bowing as Gaius handed her her newly repaired naginata.

Raven blinked, her face flickering for a moment. She turned away, fiddling with something under the counter. “Oh, I… I use some… unconventional routes…”

Yue brow creased a little. It might have been that Raven simply did not enjoy the thought of having her company that long, but again her instincts told her that there was more to it. “What do you mean?”

She was silent for a moment, but Yue could almost hear the gears turning in her head. She tried to start speaking several times. Yue had to hold back a smile; the woman was honest by nature, a good heart. Not always strictly helpful for a merchant.

“Raven travels by air, most of the time.”

Both of them turned to Gaius, who was hunched over with his eye fixed on some tiny intricate detail of whatever he was working on.

“Oh, you mean the airships?”

“Yes,” Raven said, too fast and too loud, “the airships, that’s it.”

Yue nodded. “They’re very popular now. So handy for long distances, especially if you have a lot to carry.”

“Yes,” Raven said, again, and as they exchanged payment for the repairs she finally looked her in the eyes, and they both understood.

They were both travelling salespeople, after all.

* * *

“You’re quite lucky actually. I don’t usually come out here at this time of year.”

Yue waved her parasol to demonstrate. The warm weather was always a bit of a pain, with her skin that seemed desperate to burn and her heavy clothing, and she tended to stay on the smaller circuits during the summer.

“Oh… I’m sorry. I’ll… I’ll leave you be.” The man shuffled back towards his house and Yue had to reach an arm out to stop him.

“No, no, I didn’t mean it that way at all! I’m here to sell, and you’re here to buy, and that’s the important thing.”

The man turned back. His hair, even darker than her own, was like a cowl and he tended to turn his face away, hiding behind it. The features behind it were kind and patient, but also sad in the way that is not transient but baked-in by long practice.

“They say that you… are good at knowing what people want. What they like best…” His voice meandered lazily around his words and was so low that even the gentle breeze threatened to carry it away.

Yue leaned on the fence, admiring the crops sprouting vigorously under the summer sun. “Well, I don’t know what people say, so it might be a bit exaggerated, but I do have a sharp eye for the things people are drawn to. That’s part of being a good merchant.”

The man nodded, his hair falling from his shoulders like satin curtains. “I need something for someone… something he would like.”

She smiled, hoping it would soothe his nerves a bit. “Well that’s easy enough. What sort of a person is he?”

He frowned, eyes focussing on something she couldn’t see. “He’s… nice. Friendly. He looks after monsters… he is very kind. Very kind…”

Yue frowned. “He sounds lovely, but that kind of description doesn’t give me a lot to work with.”

“Sorry…” The man sighed. “It’s difficult to know exactly… He’s just...” His already whispered voice faded to barely more than a breath.

She looked at him. His face was mostly hidden now, but there was a thin sliver peeking past his hair, and it bore a look she had seen before.

“Hmm.” She twirled the parasol again. “Why don’t you go and talk to him, and see if you can figure out the details. Then come back to me, and we’ll figure out the perfect gift together. Hey, why not take him to the inn? I’ve been staying there and the food really is excellent.”

“A meal?” His eyebrows scrunched up over his nose.

“Yes. People often open up a lot over food.”

“Huh…” Good, he was actually considering it. Just one more push should do it.

“I’ll be leaving the day after tomorrow, so you’ll have to be quick.”

He blinked. “That soon? Oh…” For a moment his eyes glazed over and Yue wondered if she had miscalculated. Then: “If I take the shortest route... towards town…”

Yue nodded, beaming. “Let me know as soon as you find out what he wants. I’m sure you’ll find it.”

* * *

“I know it’s somewhere- ah, sorry, I guess I’ve let it get a bit of a mess in here, but…. Ah, here you go!”

The Princess produced a sheaf of papers from the pile with a flourish.

“One trader’s licence, just sign on the dotted line and you’re good to go!”

“Thank you.” Yue stepped carefully around the clutter of notes and clothes and farming equipment that had been jostled loose of their positions in the quest for paperwork.

The Princess smiled meekly as she etched out her name on the form. “Really, sorry again. It’s not normally this bad!” She frowned. “Or maybe it is, and it’s just been a while since we’ve had any new traders…” She shoved a pair of shears and a bag of tomato seeds into a draw alongside what appeared to be an entire Wooly costume. “Well, actually…”

She turned a ladle over and over in her hands, her delicate brow creasing. “Maybe it’s me. I’ve been a little… distracted, lately.”

“Oh? I’m sure your job is very difficult. You have to think about so many things. A lot of the royalty I meet live lives that are more… relaxed.” Yue smiled gently. “They would never meet individual traders like this, for example.”

“I really love living here, and it’s so kind of them to accept me as their Princess…”

Yue cocked her head. Most of the royalty she’d met hadn’t been _chosen,_ either… But there were plenty where that might have been a better idea. What a peculiar little town.

“But right now, it’s not that. I’m actually getting married soon.”

“Congratulations!” Yue smiled. It seemed her instincts had paid off again; weddings were _very_ good for business, and royal weddings tenfold so.

“Thank you. We’d been dancing around it for so long, and now that everything seems to have finally settled down… it feels _right._ ”

“There’s no rushing these things.”

“Ha, especially not my fiance. The harder you push him, the harder he pushes back.” She tossed a bundle of monster feed on top of a dresser. “We’re a lot alike that way. Maybe that’s why we’ve been such a good pair, and why it’s taken so long to get this far.”

She had a soft, wistful smile, running her hands over a dark coat as she hung it up in the wardrobe.

“He always supported me, even when things got really crazy, and now that it’s all over I suddenly thought that if anything else ridiculous ever happens, I don’t want to have waited.”

She’d seen that look before, and she knew what it meant. Yue’s job was transitory, fluid, but she could recognise something unshakable when she saw it. “It sounds like you’re both very lucky.”

“Yeah! There’s so many things that could have gone differently. Even how we met was really weird and unlikely.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah, he roared at me real loud, kicked me with his hooves and zapped me until I hit him with my wood axe and dragged him back to town.”

A drop of ink dripped onto the paperwork. “Is. Is that so? Well,” she said, recomposing herself, “they say that all relationships are a little bit like that, don’t they?”

“I guess so. Oh, are you done? Sorry again for all the hassle.”

Yue handed the completed form back. “Please don’t worry. I’ve had to endure worse in this job.”

“ _Really?_ ” The Princess’s mouth twisted into a dubious frown.

“Really. At least you didn’t ask me to perform trial by combat or steal the feather of some rare monster from a cliff-face, or sit in a bath for three days.”

The Princess folded up the paper and stuffed it into a pocket, a thoughtful look on her face. “Huh. Well trial by combat seems messy and Lin Fa has _very_ strict rules about the baths, but I can think of one very rare monster with lovely feathers I’ve always kinda wanted to touch…”

* * *

“Ah, thank you.” Yue accepted the cup of tea with a polite bow, inhaling the floral aroma delicately.

Kyle sat down across from her, placing the pot between them. “Let me know what you think. The kids have been experimenting with new blends.”

“Kyle, I’ve told all of you about testing things out on our friends.” Cecelia frowned at her spouse, but accepted the tea offered.

“You know I can’t say no to them, love. And they’re really very good farmers,” he added, nodding at Yue.

Over Cecelia’s token grumbles Yue asked, “Where are they now? Every time I visit they seem to have sprung up again, or brought some new trophy back.”

“Dorothy has taken them out of town with Leonel. She wants to try and get him a little less nervous around monsters and thanks to our childrens’ little adventures,” she elbowed Kyle, not quite hiding a smile, “ours are very experienced.”

“So I’ve heard,” Yue said, watching the rainbow of emotions passing over Kyle’s face as she sipped her tea.

“They’re really going to be something special, once they’ve grown up a little.” Like Cecelia, he couldn’t quite hide his pride.

“It seems to me that they’re already very special children. I don’t hear a lot of tales of dragon-slaying youths in my journeys.”

He chuckled. “Well now, they didn’t strictly _slay_ anything… but I take your point.”

For a moment the three of them sat there, letting the gentle crackle of the fireplace take them back over the years. Yue stirred her cup, watching the leaves spin in the water. Kyle knew she preferred tea without milk in it. She liked to watch the patterns form and dance.

“How has the farm been doing? I have heard it’s a good season. Everywhere I go the markets are teeming with vegetables,” she said, dragging them all back to the present.

“Oh, it’s been the same here. We can’t ship them fast enough!”

“And Mr. Sainte-Coquille can’t _eat_ them fast enough,” Cecelia added with a chuckle. “I must have learnt two hundred new recipes in the last few weeks alone, trying to keep things fresh.”

“You’re still working in the Manor, then?” Yue took another sip of tea and accepted the biscuit offered across the table.

“Oh yes, it would be too strange not to. I feel like a part of the family there, and that’s how they’ve always treated me. Besides, I don’t think I’m cut out for ploughing fields and taming monsters.”

“Come on now, the monsters adore you! Just the other week one of our green dragons snuck into the house just to see you.”

“Just to eat all my stew and scare me half to death, you mean!” Cecelia sighed as her husband chuckled, hiding her half-smile behind her hand.

Yue smiled at the both of them. In her line of work there were usually some people who were friends, who could always be counted on for a smile and a chat when met again, no matter how many months had passed. There were precious few with whom she could sit down like this after a long journey as if no time had passed at all.

“Let the children know that their new blend is wonderful,” she said, rising from the table.

“Heading out again?” Kyle asked.

“Always.”

“Well, you must come by and see us again for dinner one evening, when the children are back. If there is still a dinner to eat, that is.”

She nodded, placing the cup back on its saucer with a soft clink. 

“Don’t some people claim to be able to read the leaves and divine the future? Perhaps we should call Alicia,” Kyle mused.

“There is no need,” Yue said, waving goodbye as she stepped out, “I already know.”

* * *

Another warm little house with its own scent of food over the hearth. Her footsteps on the well-swept floor like an old friend. She placed her pack down carefully, Yue the merchant taking a break as Yue the woman stepped over the threshold. 

“Mother!”

She looked up at the call from above, smiling.

“I’m home!”


End file.
